OTTAWA — A high-profile Conservative senator who had spoken out against a plan to suspend three senators without pay says he won’t support a watered-down version either, even though it means he will be going directly against the wishes of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Whether others will follow him remains unclear, but they’ll have the weekend to think it over. It now appears that Tuesday will be judgment day for Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau and Mike Duffy, all of whom still have two more days in the Senate to speak.

On Thursday, the Conservatives finally introduced a much anticipated new motion to suspend Wallin, Brazeau and Duffy, but give them “normal access to Senate resources necessary to continue life, health and dental insurance coverage.”

The new motion, if passed, means the trio accused of misspending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars would keep their benefits and titles for up to two years — or sooner if an election is called before fall 2015 — then be reinstated, including their $135,200-a-year salaries.

However, the somewhat softer proposal wasn’t enough to sway Sen. Hugh Segal, who said Thursday he still won’t support it.

“I have read the new motion carefully. It still imposes a harsh sentence on all three senators without due process, trashes the presumption of innocence, and may, if passed, be interfering in what are supposed to be independent police investigations,” Segal told Postmedia News in an email.

“I support my prime minister on economic, trade, defence and foreign policy — but cannot support the government leader in the Senate on this motion.

“I will vote against it.”

Unlike three previous motions that it replaces, this plan was introduced as “government business,” which means the Conservatives can limit how much debate it undergoes in the Senate chamber. Senators will return to the red chamber Monday, where they will vote to limit debate on the suspensions to six hours, setting the table for a final vote as late as Tuesday.

The tactics Thursday brought to a close two weeks of turmoil that have rocked the upper chamber, as political bombshells dropped first from Duffy — who levelled accusations of a wide cover-up scheme related to the repayment of his housing expenses out of Harper’s office — to Wallin — who alleged top Tory senators were out to get her and destroy her reputation over her travel expenses — to finally Brazeau, who alleged he was offered a “backroom deal” to apologize in return for a more lenient sentence.

Despite moving to limit debate, the trio still have two more days to speak with immunity in the Senate meaning anything could happen when the upper chamber returns Monday to continue debate on a government proposal to suspend all three.

The catch-all motion was supposed to replace almost word-for-word three earlier proposals, which allowed senators to vote their conscience without the fear of bucking their party. Even though government Senate leader Claude Carignan has said senators will still be free to vote on the new motion as they please, Conservative senators suggest toeing the party line on the new vote is expected.

OTTAWA, ON: OCTOBER 28, 2013– Senator Hugh Segal speaks to reporters before party caucus meetings on Parliament Hill on the fifth day of a motion to suspend embattled Senators Patrick Brazeau, Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy in Ottawa on Monday, October 28, 2013. (Justin Tang for National Post)

The caucus has shown some fissures over the affair, with Segal and Sen. Don Plett, a former Conservative party president, publicly coming out against the suspensions earlier.

“I’m doing a lot of thinking about it,” Plett told reporters on his way into the chamber. He didn’t elaborate.

Liberal Sen. James Cowan said the new “omnibus” motion was “just as flawed as its three predecessors” and maintained the matter should be sent to a Senate committee for more study.

“I’ve thought for a long time that the rush to judgment…was an attempt by the Prime Minister’s Office to shut them down, to shut them up, from spilling any more details about the involvement of the Prime Minister’s Office in this whole sordid tale,” Cowan.

The Tories had initially hoped to have the vote wrapped up by Friday, just in time for Harper’s keynote address at the party’s biennial convention, but procedural wrangling in the Senate stymied that. Harper wants the three off the public payroll.

Carignan told reporters the final vote would be Monday or Tuesday. He added that a number of senators — he couldn’t say how many — are going to the party convention in Calgary.

When asked if he had convinced Plett or Segal to vote with the party next week, Carignan was coy: “We’ll see about that (in) the vote.”

Privately, Conservatives in the Senate believe they have enough votes in the caucus to approve the suspensions.

Harper was not in the House of Commons Thursday, as he travelled to Calgary for the party convention. But his point-man in the Commons urged Liberals senators to “get out of the way” and allow Conservatives to punish Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau, each of whom has been targeted because of spending irregularities.

“It’s time for some accountability in the Senate,” said Paul Calandra, a Toronto-area MP. “We’ve made great progress on that. The Liberals in the Senate need to get out of the way so that the senators can pass this motion so that we can get that accountability that Canadians want.”

Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau have maintained they followed the rules, blaming some mistakes on clerical errors. But there have also been allegations of a coverup over how Duffy came to have $90,000 in housing expenses repaid for him by the prime minister’s own top aide.

“The prime minister has stated for months that no documents existed outlining the cover up taking place in his own office. but we now know that wasn’t true because Sen. Duffy has made public documents and emails directly contradicting the prime minister,” said Liberal House Leader Dominic LeBlanc. “It’s a sad day when Canadians have to learn more from Mike Duffy in eight days than from the prime minister in eight months.”

NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen said the Harper government was digging itself into a deeper hole by not answering basic questions about the spending saga.

“Only this party and this member (Calandra) would think that a prime minister not coming clean with Canadians somehow wasn’t important to Canadians,” Cullen said in the Commons. “We believe this to be important to the nation’s state. The issue is Conservative involvement in a cover-up to pay off Mike Duffy and buy his silence.”

I cover justice, immigration and public safety issues as part of the Postmedia News politics team. I also keep tabs on what the official Opposition — the NDP — is up to in the House of Commons.
Before... read more coming here I spent several years in Montreal and Toronto with The Canadian Press covering provincial politics and major crime and court stories. I also helped cover the war in Afghanistan from inside and outside the wire.
I previously worked for the Ottawa Sun chasing crime stories and following convicts through the court system.
I love the unpredictability of my job and believe the opportunity to help document history as it unfolds is an awesome privilege that never ceases to give me chills.
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